Microsoft announce the Microsoft Band

The rumours surrounding Microsoft making a wearable of some sort have been floating around the web for a while now. Last night Microsoft finally announced it, the Microsoft Band which is a fitness and sleep tracker for Windows Phone 8.1, iOS 7 or 8 and Android 4.3 and above. Yes you read that right.

Microsoft posted the following excerpt on their Blog.

We are excited to launch the Microsoft Band, a smart band designed to be worn 24 hours a day by people who are active both in the gym and on the job. The Microsoft Band has 10 smart sensors for 24-hour heart rate monitoring, calorie burn measurement, advanced sleep quality tracking and more as well as Guided Workouts curated by Gold’s Gym, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Muscle & Fitness. The Microsoft Band will keep you connected at a glance with helpful, smart notifications including incoming calls, emails, texts and social updates as well as access to Cortana. Microsoft Band is now available in the US in limited quantities at MicrosoftStore.com and starting October 30th at Microsoft Stores for $199.

The band will work in conjunction with the new service Microsoft Health which basically just gathers all the information from their new band and also from Jawbone or Myfitness pal.

Today we’re announcing a new platform called Microsoft Health. Within health and fitness, there is rapid innovation occurring around wearable devices with smart sensors that are telling us more about our lives. A vibrant marketplace of devices and services is giving us access to a wealth of data about our nutrition, health and fitness. We see an opportunity to bring these devices and services together to allow you to combine the information they collect and use the power of the cloud to turn that data in to something more valuable.

In my eyes I think it is a wise move of Microsoft to add Android and iOS support into their Band. Without that they would be limiting themselves to only a tiny percent of the market, with Android and iOS they could just have something cool on their hands. The only slight issues for me are the fact that they seem to be only releasing it in the US and the price at $199 it will be kind of expensive and more expensive than the other fitness bands, apart from maybe the Jawbone UP. However the added notification functionality does push it more towards the Smartwatch price sector. Personally I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for a bit and hope that Microsoft release this over here in the UK.

Today we’re announcing a new platform called Microsoft Health. Within health and fitness, there is rapid innovation occurring around wearable devices with smart sensors that are telling us more about our lives. A vibrant marketplace of devices and services is giving us access to a wealth of data about our nutrition, health and fitness. We see an opportunity to bring these devices and services together to allow you to combine the information they collect and use the power of the cloud to turn that data in to something more valuable.

The Microsoft Health platform includes a cloud service for consumers and the industry to store and combine health and fitness data to create powerful insights. Microsoft Health will be available for consumers from the new Microsoft Health app which launches today on Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Also launching today is the Microsoft Band, a smart band designed for Microsoft Health, for people who want to live healthier and be more productive.

First, let’s talk about how Microsoft Health will make tracking personal fitness easier, more insightful and more holistic. Microsoft Health will unite data from different health and fitness devices and services in a single, secure location. Once stored in Microsoft Health, you can combine the data you generate from different devices and services – steps, calories, heart rate and more – to receive powerful insights from our Intelligence Engine. At launch, our Intelligence Engine will share insights such as:

Which exercises burned the most calories during a workoutThe recommended recovery time based on the intensity of a workoutThe amount of restful vs. restless sleep

Over time, you will have the choice to combine your fitness data with calendar and email information from Office as well as location-based information and more. As you make more data available, the Intelligence Engine will get smarter and provide more powerful insights, such as:

Fitness performance relative to work scheduleWhether eating breakfast helps you run fasterIf the number of meetings during the day impacts sleep quality.

Microsoft Health is designed to benefit our partners in many ways. For new entrants and startups we have a complete offering that includes our app, and APIs as well as cloud storage for their data. Existing services can upload their data to Microsoft Health and take advantage of our advanced algorithms and the powerful machine learning from our Intelligence Engine to give their customers insights. New devices can license our 10 wrist-worn sensor modules to gather robust data including active heart rate, sleep and GPS.

Today, we are announcing that Microsoft Health will work with UP by Jawbone, MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal and RunKeeper. Soon, Microsoft Health will also allow you, at your choosing, to connect your Microsoft Health data to HealthVault to share with your medical provider. We plan to have a regular cadence of Microsoft Health announcements including additional device and service partnerships, SDK availability and additional cross-platform applications and services.

We are also excited to launch the Microsoft Band, a smart band designed to be worn 24 hours a day by people who are active both in the gym and on the job. The Microsoft Band has 10 smart sensors for 24-hour heart rate monitoring, calorie burn measurement, advanced sleep quality tracking and more as well as Guided Workouts curated by Gold’s Gym, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Muscle & Fitness. The Microsoft Band will keep you connected at a glance with helpful, smart notifications including incoming calls, emails, texts and social updates as well as access to Cortana. Microsoft Band is now available in the US in limited quantities at MicrosoftStore.com and starting October 30th at Microsoft Stores for $199.

Today, we are taking our first steps with the industry to empower people to achieve more with their fitness and wellness. We’d like to invite you to join us on this journey. We’ll be building this experience jointly with you and our partners and we are committed to continuously improving the service based on the feedback we receive.

And in closing, I’m proud to share with you the excitement of our partners in their own words:

“We are excited to have Microsoft Health integrate with our open platform. This will allow us to provide even more personalized insights through the Jawbone UP® system in the future.” – Travis Bogard, VP of Product and Strategy, Jawbone

“As a leader in Connected Fitness, we are excited to take part in the Microsoft Health platform. Both Microsoft Health and Under Armour/MapMyFitness aspire to connect a wide range of fitness tracking devices, via an open cloud platform, to make fitness simpler and more rewarding. We look forward to the development of Microsoft Health and cannot wait to share even greater insights with our community.” – Brian Pitstick, Director of Business Development, Under Armour

“RunKeeper is thrilled to join Microsoft in our shared mission of encouraging healthy and active living. A single, open destination for fitness data will allow us to provide even better insights to the more than 36 million people around the world using RunKeeper to experience the joys of running.” – Jason Jacobs, CEO and founder, RunKeeper

“At MyFitnessPal, user success is our true North, and we are excited to join Microsoft in their mission to make fitness easier through Microsoft Health. Plugging into their cloud platform will allow us to match up fitness and nutrition data from our 65 million users around the world with deeper and broader data, ultimately helping people build even healthier habits in their everyday lives.” – Mike Lee, CEO, MyFitnessPal

“Partnering with Microsoft on Microsoft Band aligns perfectly with our mission at Gold’s Gym. Together, with our goal-based workouts created specifically for Microsoft Band, we will help people achieve their potential through fitness.” – Michael Cobb, Chief Marketing Officer, Gold’s Gym